As with other addictive activities, the brain adjusts to increased dopamine levels wrought by porn use. For example, modern-day sex addicts typically start out with a relatively generic and mostly harmless activity such as viewing and masturbating to online porn. Sex and love addictions escalate in similar fashion. Eventually, however, and with no clear intent to do so, they find themselves cooking and injecting their new drug of choice, wondering how the heck they ended up in a back alley with a needle in their arm. Initially they might just sprinkle a bit into the pot they smoke or the pills they’ve been crushing and snorting. Then, as their brain continues to adapt, they start using “harder” drugs like heroin. As time passes, their tolerance increases and they start drinking more beer or hard liquor, or smoking larger amounts of pot, or crushing and snorting the pills they’re using for a faster, more impactful hit. Instead, heroin addicts start out with beer or pot or a prescription medication.
Ask yourself: Does anyone shoot smack right out of the gate? Not really.
Usually this concept is easier to understand if we’re talking about a substance abuse issue, such as heroin addiction. (I have written about the neurochemistry of addiction in easy to understand terms here.) Because of this, addicts must, over time, use more of or a more intense version of an addictive substance or behavior to get the same high they experienced when they first started. In other words, the brain develops a tolerance to addictive substances and behaviors. In simplest terms, this occurs because the brain adjusts to excessive dopamine levels (created by the repeated use of an addictive substance or behavior) by producing less dopamine and/or reducing the number of dopamine receptors in the brain. Addicts of all types typically experience an increasing tolerance to the mood-altering effects of their substance/behavior of choice.